Stylistic Lexicology

Outline
• Most Frequent English Words
• Classification Problems
• Aesthetic Classification of the Vocabulary
• Superneutral Words
• Subneutral Words
• Stylistically Heterogeneous Words
 Most Frequent English Words
9 words – AND, BE,HAVE, IT, OF, THE, TO,
WILL, YOU - 25% of everyday communication.
+ 34 words – ABOUT, ALL, AS, AT, BUT, CAN,
COME, DAY, DEAR, FOUR, GET, GO, HEAR,
HER, IF, IN, ME, MUCH, NOT, ON, ONE, SAY,
SHE, SO, THAT,THESE, THEY, THIS,
THOUGH,TIME, WE, WITH, WRITE,YOUR – 50
% of everyday communication.
George McKnight
(English Words and their Background)
 Classification Problems
• Classification is to be established on the
same dividing principle.
Archaic Bookish Euphemisms Colloquial
words Native words

• A word should only belong to one class.

To perspire – bookish borrowed euphemism.
 Aesthetic Classification
• Positive (elevated) – superneutral words

• Neutral words

• Negative (degraded) – subneutral words

Degrees of Elevation/ Degradation
• Elevation/degradation is a result of
evaluating at least 3 factors: the subject of
speech, the character of the
communicative sphere, the participants of
communication.
Degrees of Elevation/ Degradation
(2)
• The minimal degree presupposes absence
of purpose. (activity, prevail)
• The medial degree suggests it that the
speaker chooses words deliberately to
achieve a certain stylistic effect.
(somnolent, expurgate, big gun..)
• The maximal degree are highly expressive
words possessing either very special
aesthetic value or inadmissible ethically.
 Superneutral Words
• Poetic words (poetic diction) demonstrate
the maximum of aesthetic value. (sylvan,
morn, albeit)
• Official words of business and legal
correspondence – the medial level of
elevation (spouse, thereinto, hereto)
• Special terms – the medial level of
elevation (extraction, recovery, leaching)
 Superneutral Words (2)
• Barbarisms – medial/ minimal level of
elevation if they are from prestigious
languages (French, Latin, Greek)
• Archaic words (which are not completely
out of use) – medial degree of elevation
(thou, thee, knight, main))
 Superneutral Words (3)
• Special terms – popular terms are of minimal or
medial degree of elevation. (evaporation,
collider)

• Bookish words – all levels of elevation: either

formal (sometimes high-flown) synonyms of
neutral words (commence, respond, individual)
or express notions that can only be described in
neutral and subneutral styles (to hibernate).
 Bookish Words
A young lady home from school was explaining:
“Take, an egg,” she said,” and make a
perforation in the base and a corresponding one
in the apex. Then apply the lips to the aperture,
and by forcibly inhaling the breath the shell is
entirely discharged of its contents.” an old lady
who was listening exclaimed: “it beats all how
folks do things nowadays. When I was a girl they
made a hole in each end and sucked.”
 Bookish Words (training)
• A vast concourse was assembled to
witness.
• Disastrous conflagration
• The individual was precipitated.
• He commenced his rejoinder.
• They called into requisition the services of
the physician.
 Subneutral Words
• Minimal degree – colloquialisms

• Medial degree- slang, jargon, dialectisms,

archaic words (which are out of use),
barbarisms (aliens from languages of no
prestige), nonce-words and neologisms

• Maximal degree – stylistic vulgarisms and

vulgarisms proper
 Colloquialisms
• Colloquial words proper:
a) colloquial synonyms of neutral words
(chap, chunk)
b) words which have no neutral equivalents
(drifter, molly-coddle)
c) nursery words (mummy, tummy, pussy,
gee-gee)
 Colloquialisms (2)
• Phonetic variants of neutral words (gaffer,
feller, baccy, don’t, shan’t..)
• Diminutives of neutral or colloquial words
(granny, lassie, piggy, Bobby, Johny)
• Colloquial meanings of polysemantic
words (spoon, pretty bad, awfully sorry)
• Interjections (except Oh)
 Jargon Words
• Informal, often humorous replacements of
neutral or superneutral words, used in
professional or social groups.
mil. To be put in a bag, big gun, a bird,
an egg, picture show
cant Ain’t a lifer, not him! Got a stretch for
pulling a leather up in Chi.
 Slang
• Commonly understood and widely used
words and expressions of humorous or
derogatory character – intentional
substitutes for neutral or elevated words
and expressions.
Food: chuck, chow, grub, hash
Money: jack, tin, brass, oof, slippery stuff
 Neologisms and Nonce-words
• Newly coined words are not easily accepted
by the linguistic community, hence any new
words are of low stylistic value.
• Nonce-words are individual creations used
for the given occasion.
Georgessness, balconyful, two husbands ago
Her nose was red and dew-droppy. She was
too Jack-in-the boxy.
 Vulgar Words
• Words too offensive for polite usage.
They can be divided into 2 groups:
a) Vulgarisms proper- express ideas
unmentionable in civilized society.
c—t, f—k
b) Stylistic vulgarisms express derogatory
attitude of the speaker towards the object
of speech. smeller, ol’ bean